Special Board of Aldermen 07-01-2021 Page 17
had last year. And then it was cut so there are going to be losses. If you take that into consideration when
the fentanyl traffic is growing, and | am sure you get the same reports | do on the arrests that are being
made and during this last year the Police Officers that were physically harmed and/or out of work because
of arrests that were made, it’s not an easy job. It is protecting the people of Nashua. It is a safety issue. |
for one am not going to have the State drive the safety of our citizens in Nashua.
That amount of money will allow them to maintain the same levels of service that they had last year and
provide the services. There are a lot of things that they won’t be able to do, believe it or not, with that cut.
And the people of Nashua are going to — you know right now they are not at the full complement of officers
that they could have and should have by their analysis. | don’t know how many times I’ve heard people
say, OH it takes a police officer 10 minutes to get here. That’s because each sector has one car, three
each shift. We are not over policed, we are adequately policed and they do a great job with the staff they
have. And I, for one, am not going to cut one penny from their request to maintain the services that they
have provided over the past year which were exemplary.
Last year they were commended as one of the best, if not the best, Police Accredited Agency in the United
States. That is something to be proud of. And, | for one, will not cut them to save a couple buck on the tax
rate. You know, if you are somebody out there and your home is being burglarized because drug dealers
need money to buy their drugs, you want a police officer to be able to respond and you don’t want them 10
minutes later, you want them as soon as he can get there. If you follow the amount of arrests and things
that have gone on in the City and the lack of development of drug dealers because we have two POP
units, which we may lose one if this cut does in, | for one, would not ever try to save that much money and
lose that kind of protection.
President Wilshire
Alderman Lopez.
Alderman Lopez
Echoing a lot of what Alderman Dowd said, | find it extremely inconsistent to claim that you have high
respect for the budgetary prowess of the Police Department and respect for the good work that they do on
the job while literally telling them that you are just going to drop their budget done, despite their objections
and despite their concerns with the assumption that they can make it work based on what you are looking
for. | can’t follow that logic. | would say that there’s a big difference between cocaine and
methamphetamine which are two of the more prevalent drugs on the street than fentanyl and carfentanil.
Carfentanil is definitely dangerous because it is an area infector so it is a danger to First Responders. But
someone who is cocaine or somebody who is using methamphetamines is typically much more agitated,
aroused, animated, violent. One of the areas that we scored very highly on in order to get our good
governance was low incidents of violent crime.
So if we decide to ignore the police and what they report as their level of need a time when we are seeing
an increase in the substances that contribute to violent crime, we are going to see a rise in violent crime.
That doesn’t just translate to Wallet Hub rankings that translates to death, injuries, our own people being
put in a greater level of harms way. The best way to respond to those types of situations is to intervene
before they start to become widespread. We did not collective, as a State, do a very good job with the
opioid crisis when it first presented itself, we responded after it was very evident in low income situations or
in areas of poverty, we really only responded to it when it was impossible to ignore.
Our response was extremely effective thanks to a pretty healthy amount of leadership and vision from the
Fire Department and from Mayor Donchess in arranging the Safe Station Program which the State took
over, realigned and redesigned into a model that is not as effective is not anywhere near as responsive.
They awarded contracts to partners that basically resulted in our Fire Department not being able to take 24
hour walk ups or calls because there would be nowhere to send them to. Apparently the crisis is now just
a 9:00 to 5:00 bureaucratic exercise, it is not the same situation. So we don’t have the same protections